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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23751616">Halves of a Heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphyreLily/pseuds/SapphyreLily'>SapphyreLily</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Different Sun, Same Land [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person, and also losing your mind stuff, like sort of breakup stuff, this is the hard stuff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:20:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,729</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23751616</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphyreLily/pseuds/SapphyreLily</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of what happened when Aeris and Starmist disappeared. What happened to them, and how they dealt with it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aeris Blizzardglade/Starmist Whisper</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Different Sun, Same Land [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1001394</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Halves of a Heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by Niall Horan's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO3S8CKafbE">Put A Little Love On Me</a></p><p>I sat down at 11pm, thinking "oh yeah, this can't take long, surely" and at 2am I looked up with draft 1 done. It was 4am before I gave up editing and went to bed. Berate me for my life choices.</p><p>Also yes, be warned this is angst. And 2nd person POV bc I never write enough of that.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <em>i. Aeris</em> </strong>
</p><p>You fall on your rear end, gasping at the <em>pain,</em> the <em>shock.</em> The sheer anger that he would dare to do that, that he would dare to push you. You shove back to your feet, ready to charge back through the portal, but the tiny asura gate attendant steps in front of you, arms spread wide and a snarl on her face. “No! Enough! This is <em>not</em> what the Mist portals are for! Turn around this instance and leave, or I will call the Lionguard on you.”</p><p>You pause, the red in your vision barely dimming. “He’s still in there. I have to get him.”</p><p>She shakes her head. “No. He will come back if he was meant to come back. I will watch the gate. You do not get to go back through, not in your state.”</p><p>Your fists clench, and you open your mouth to argue. She holds up one finger. “Last chance, sylvari. I will start yelling on the count of three. One, two, thr–”</p><p>You spin away from her, cursing her under your breath. You spot the backpack with your items – and <em>his</em> – lying on the floor. Scooping it up, you stalk off.</p><p>How dare he. How dare <em>she</em> stop you from going after him. How could this infernally infuriating world do this to you?</p><p>You let a vicious smile lift your lips. You’re <em>glad</em> Starmist doesn’t have his weapons with him. Maybe he’ll get what he deserves, in the unpredictable Mists. Serves him right.</p><p>You walk, not seeing where you’re going, vaguely aware of the people scattering, moving out of your way. This pleases you. They <em>should</em> move for you. They shouldn’t dare to talk to you. You are going to tear out the throat of the next person who dares to speak to you.</p><p>“Hey. Pay up or you’re not passing through the gate.”</p><p>Your eyes flick to another asura, and your lips press together. Maybe you <em>wouldn’t</em> yell at the gate attendant. This one did nothing to you, and you’d look like an idiot for yelling at him. You press a silver coin into his hand and walk through the gate, emerging into the damp humidity of the Maguuma Jungle. Cobblestones clack under your feet, and you pause, suddenly aware of your surroundings.</p><p>This is not the Grove.</p><p>It must be Rata Sum.</p><p>You grit your teeth. By the Mother, was <em>everything</em> trying to make you angry today? Was <em>everything</em> going to go wrong?</p><p>You spin on your heel and stalk back to the asura gates. No gate attendant tries to stop you when you walk through one, but your feet still hit cobblestones. The same sort of cobblestones, the same sort of architecture rising around you.</p><p>Thorns, now you are in <em>Soren Draa</em>. No wonder no one stopped you.</p><p>You stalk forward, too angry to turn back, too conscious of the many asura staring at you.</p><p>You will not humiliate yourself by changing your mind and going back to Lion’s Arch to get another gate to the Grove. You can walk through the forest and get back to the Grove in no time.</p><p>And maybe, you admit to yourself, you can use the walk to calm down.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>ii. Aeris</em> </strong>
</p><p>You’ve been walking for hours. You’ve taken a break for food and drink, and to ask a passing asura progeny where you are on your map. You suppose you are close to the path that will cut into the Caledon Forest, but you are tired. There is a large building up ahead, completely devoid of people, and you head there to take a rest.</p><p>You’ve seated yourself close to a pile of oddly sparking purple rock, when you notice the asura walking around in hazard gear. Some of them are bent over and look to be coughing. You don’t understand why.</p><p>The purple rocks next to you spark, and you flinch.</p><p>You are falling.</p><p>A hard surface greets you, and your breath is lost, pushed out of your body unceremoniously. The hard angles of your backpack and the combined weight of two sets of gear crush you, poking uncomfortably into your back. You slowly push yourself up, groaning.</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p>You see an asura in telling black and red robes peeking over the rock above you, and you scramble to your feet, fumbling for your sword.</p><p>The asura groans. “Please, none of that. I’m no threat to you.”</p><p>“Are you certain?” You ask, sword finally unsheathed and pointed at him. The Inquest researcher sighs.</p><p>“Come up here, fool sylvari.”</p><p>You cautiously climb the slippery rock, finally seeing him as he is, laid out on the rock, one leg bent at an awkward angle. He gives his leg a pointed look. “See? My leg’s broken. And I’m all that’s left of my krewe. I’m trapped here, same as you.”</p><p>“Who said I’m trapped?” You ask, but you lower your sword. The researcher rolls his eyes.</p><p>“If you’re here, you’re trapped. I saw you appear and splat.” He points towards the opposite end of the cavern. “The only way out is through that gate on the last platform. This leg means I’m not getting out, but maybe you can, if your timing is good.”</p><p>You eye the constructs scattered through the cavern, the broken pillars arranged in a pattern you think you can handle. After all, didn’t you just escape a similar cavern with Starmist?</p><p>“All I have to do is jump from pillar to pillar?”</p><p>The researcher nods. “It’s that simple. Or difficult, if you’re me with a broken leg. How do you think I got this?” His eyes widen at something behind you, and you turn, but see nothing. “Ah, I forgot one tiny caveat. Do you see those chaos rifts through the cavern?”</p><p>You look, but you don’t know what you’re looking for. “Chaos rifts?”</p><p>“Those sparking things, dandelion-brain. Avoid those. They wreak havoc with reality. You might find yourself…affected, if one of those hits you.”</p><p>You think back, the purple sparks prompting a memory. “Will it bring me back to where I came from if I get hit?”</p><p>The researcher laughs. “Oh, don’t we hope! No. I know one brought you here, but all the effects I’ve seen while I was trying to escape do not teleport you out.”</p><p>You press your lips together. “Why do they teleport people like that?”</p><p>The researcher sighs. “There was an explosion at the Thaumanova reactor in Metrica Province. Some of the crystals used at that site were excavated in this cavern, and now they exhibit a twinning effect.”</p><p>You were just in Metrica Province.</p><p>“I…might have just been at the reactor site.”</p><p>The asura’s eyes widen. “Were you? And to be teleported so far… This is amazing. Ah, if only I could record my findings,” he laments.</p><p>You ignore him, thinking about something else he said. “What’s a ‘twinning effect’?”</p><p>It makes you think of your twin, and you’re sad that you might not make it back to the Grove in time. She is supposed to be returning from her adventures soon, and you’ll miss her.</p><p>“These crystals are creating a sympathetic metamorphic reaction, attracting the chaos rifts from Metrica Province here. Nasty bit of business, that twinning effect.”</p><p>You completely do not understand what he said. “All…right, then. I’m getting out of here, chaos rifts or no.”</p><p>“Good luck.” The researcher gives you a wan smile. “You look like you have supplies, you might make it. Say, do you have a drink of water? I’d like to have a drink, before I die.”</p><p>You nod and remove your pack. “How long have you been down here?”</p><p>“About a week, I’d wager.” He gulps a mouthful, handing the waterskin back. “Keep the rest of that. I hope you escape.”</p><p>“A week? But, your leg–”</p><p>“Broke it this morning,” he says dismissively. “Or what I presume to be morning. It was a pain to drag myself up here, you hear? I am in agony.”</p><p>You nod slowly. “Will you starve to death?”</p><p>The asura laughs. “Ah, what a fern thing to ask. No. I see a dagger in your pack. Give it to me, and I will slit my wrists or something. No point in living any longer.”</p><p>You see the logic in that, and hand him a dagger. One of Starmist’s daggers. You still feel a sourness towards your boyfriend. He wouldn’t miss one of his daggers.</p><p>Then something else registers. “You were in here <em>a week</em>?”</p><p>The asura looks up from his assessment of the dagger. “Give or take. Days are hard to count in a sunless cavern.” He points at the edge of the rock they are on. “Now get moving. I’ll drag myself a little further so you don’t need to see my bleeding body every time you fall and have to return here.”</p><p>You nod absently. “A week…”</p><p>“Yes, you dumb fern. By the Alchemy, get a move on. And avoid those rifts!”</p><p>“Thank you,” you say, finally looking back at him. “May you find peace in the Mists.”</p><p>The researcher smiles ruefully. “Escape, little plant. Go back to the sun.”</p><p>You bow to him and turn around, gauging the distance to the first pillar.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>iii. Starmist</em> </strong>
</p><p>You fall, passing through clouds, finally thinking to curl yourself into a ball. The water’s surface slaps you anyway, and you unfurl your limbs, praying that you’re swimming upwards.</p><p>Blessed air greets you after a few reckless slaps of the water’s surface inform you of your location, and you drink it in greedily. There is nothing but water around you, but you think you spot land. You swim towards it.</p><p>It’s not as far as it seems, and you flop onto the grass, breathing heavily. As you stare at the endless expanse of white above you – the Mists are so boringly endless – your mind drifts, and you wonder again, about him.</p><p>About Aeris, your boyfriend, whom you shoved back out to Lion’s Arch. Which resulted in you remaining trapped here.</p><p>The other side of an asura gate, a completely different world.</p><p>You’re no longer angry at him. It’s been so long, since that fight. Endless days and nights of travelling and walking and seeing nothing but white, white, white, and the memories of the past.</p><p>You still haven’t met any old spirits, and it puzzles you.</p><p>But now you lie there, your clothes no longer wet – when did they dry? – and you wonder about your boyfriend. About where he went after you sent him back. About what he might have thought, what he might have done.</p><p>You’ll never know if he came back through the gate. The creature that grabbed you – a giant cliff bat, perhaps – had thrown you aside, and you’d woken up alone, with no asura gate in sight.</p><p>The only plus was that you did not have to eat, drink or perform any vaguely living activities while trapped in this infernal place. If you did, you might have died long ago. Not that it makes a difference, you think, since you are already in the Mists. The land of the dead, the land of mystery.</p><p>You think of Aeris and his sweet, gentle smile. Of his shyness that makes his glow flare a deep magenta, of the looks he sneaks at you whenever he thinks you aren’t looking. The way he holds your hand cautiously when he thinks you are asleep, how you often wake to find him nestled in your arms.</p><p>You smile bitterly at the endless white. He is lost to you forever if you don’t escape the Mists. You have no idea how to. Perhaps you will wander forever, and never see your lover again.</p><p>You hate that thought. You hate that you have no idea how much time has passed, how long you have spent in this dead land. You miss the greenness of the Caledon Forest, of the fireflies’ glowing bodies in the boughs of the Grove. You miss Murasaki’s quips and the acquaintances you’ve made, and woodwork to keep your hands busy and mind calm.</p><p>Maybe you’d go crazy, if you don’t escape.</p><p>You try to imagine all your friends and what they’re doing, but you can barely conjure up an image of their faces. White has been your life for so long, and you can’t see. You can’t imagine anything else.</p><p>Tears prick your eyes, and you throw an arm over them, the water pricking at your bark.</p><p>You hate feeling so <em>empty</em>. You miss the constant presence of the Mother, tangible no matter where you go. You miss knowing you aren’t alone. The Mists are so lonely.</p><p>You want to escape. You don’t know how to.</p><p>You roll over onto your stomach, the pale imitation of grass poking into you as you hide your face.</p><p>
  <em>Mother, please, give me strength. I want to go home.</em>
</p><p>You don’t know how long you lie there, silent tears sliding into your hands as you curse your inability to control your temper. For if you had, you’d never have been stranded here. You’d never have been lost in the Mists and lost in this mess.</p><p>You might have fallen asleep, but you have no way to know. You just get to your feet, glance at the changed landscape and keep walking straight.</p><p>
  <em>Mother, please guide me home.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>iv. Aeris</em> </strong>
</p><p>You push to your feet, tears stinging your eyes as the water stings the cuts in your palms and knees.</p><p>You want to give up. It has been so long. So long since you’d first started your futile attempt to escape. So long since the Inquest researcher had crawled out of sight and killed himself. You’ve had to walk past the smell of his rotting body to find fresh water, and it gets stronger every time you have to go back.</p><p>You have no idea how many days have passed. You’d given up on counting the times you’d fallen. The times the chaos rifts have struck you and given you strange abilities that either help or hinder your progress.</p><p>You even forgot, for the longest time, that you can make portals, to jump back up if – when – you fall. But they take so long to weave, and you are tired – so tired. The only good resting place is the starting rock where you begin your jumps. You don’t like sitting there, because you can smell the dead researcher. And it was his rock first. It reminds you too much of the dead asura’s attempts. He had been trying for a week. How long have <em>you</em> been trying?</p><p>You forgot to cut notches into rock. You don’t know.</p><p>Time is a useless construct. Your muscles cramp and burn, and every curse you know falls from your lips, but you keep pressing forward, only stopping if exhaustion drives you to your knees. You don’t like resting on top of the pillars, because the rifts are rampant and unrelenting. They warp your body, making you huge or tiny, slowing or speeding up your perception of time, and sometimes, messing with your vision.</p><p>Half the time, you don’t know what you are seeing anymore.</p><p>And the purple lightning is driving you crazy.</p><p>You wish you knew of a better way to jump out. But the rocks are so slippery. The random animals that get teleported in are annoying. You always kill them before they get you, but in another flash of purple they are gone. You never know if they were really there at all.</p><p>You need a rest. You have just fallen. Did you really?</p><p>You look down; your ankles are in the water. You nod to yourself. Yes, surely you’ve just fallen. You can take a break. You must be allowed a break. Who said you had to push yourself this hard, anyway?</p><p>You feel like the floor is dry. You lay your head down, but it’s too hard. Your backpack is also too hard, courtesy of the weapons in it, and the food that is running out.</p><p>You close your eyes and see a smiling sylvari. He is beautiful, with lilac leaves for hair and pale green bark, the kindest red eyes, flashing with mirth.</p><p>You love him. You can’t remember his name, but you love him. Is it a dream? Is <em>he </em>a dream?</p><p>If you can escape, perhaps you’ll seek him out. Maybe you Dreamt of him. You can’t remember now.</p><p>The Pale Tree is the caretaker of the Dream. You don’t know why you remember this. You can’t feel her here. You miss her.</p><p>
  <em>Mother, Mother, where are you?</em>
</p><p>Tears heat under your closed lids. They must be closed, for you do not see purple lightning. The lightning irks and reassures you. It is a constant, even when it makes you fast, slow, big and small.</p><p>Why are there tears in your eyes?</p><p>You see another sylvari. Her head is the perfect height to rest your chin on, and her bark is the same tone as yours. Her glow is a lighter shade of pink, and she smiles so much.</p><p>You love her too. What is her name?</p><p>Who is she?</p><p>In your dream, she kisses you, and you kiss her back. Her forehead is smooth beneath your lips, and her arms are warm and strong around your waist.</p><p>You remember her crying, and wiping her tears away. You remember her weight in your lap, her warmth by your side, because when have you <em>not</em> shared a hammock?</p><p>Is she your twin? You remember holding someone tightly as they cry out, and the bright sun above you. The time of your Awakening?</p><p>You miss the sun. Purple lightning can’t compare.</p><p>Your eyes must be open now, for you see the shards of crystal on the ceiling. So much purple lightning.</p><p>You sit up slowly, your muscles creaking. Your waterskin is almost empty. Time for another trek to the water pool.</p><p>You hold the memory of the two sylvari close to your heart, and it warms. You love them. You will escape for them. They must be wondering where you are. They must miss you too, surely they must.</p><p>What if they don’t?</p><p>You fumble, falling to your knees. The rock is harsh beneath your hands, but you do not fall off the pillar. That is a small blessing.</p><p>But your lips purse.</p><p>Why <em>haven’t</em> they come for you? Surely they would, if they loved you back.</p><p>You vaguely recall the dead person near the water pool. Didn’t they say something about this being the only way out, of escape?</p><p>How did you get in here?</p><p>So many questions, so few answers.</p><p>A chaos rift strikes you again, and you are tiny. You laugh.</p><p>Tiny is good. Better than huge.</p><p>The jump is easy, and you make it. You keep going, but as you jump, another streak of lightning hits you, and you slip over the edge, crashing into the water.</p><p>You pummel the floor in your frustration, creating ripples in the water around you, splashing all your clothes.</p><p>You were so close, that time. The gate is not too far away.</p><p>It glows pink and purple above you, and you stare at it angrily. You hate it. You hate how unattainable it is.</p><p>You stomp angrily back to the starting rock, screaming your frustration.</p><p>The cavern amplifies it back to you, the crystals shrieking and mocking.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>v. Starmist</em> </strong>
</p><p>All you see is his magenta glow, his perfectly sky-blue bark, his copper-coloured eyes that turn nickel with his glow.</p><p>You love him so much. You miss him so much.</p><p>You regret ever arguing with him. It was what you did, to argue until you ran out of anger, or until you found a solid answer. But now that you are all alone, you miss him so much it hurts. You just want to hold his hands and beg for forgiveness, and ask if he’d take you back.</p><p>You didn’t actually break up, but it feels like you did. All these dissonant whispers, all these insecurities.</p><p>
  <strong>I am not simply a whisper. Come to me. Open your mind.</strong>
</p><p>You do not understand.</p><p>
  <strong>I am Glint. This way, sapling. No, the other way.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>He is blinded by the world. He cannot see us.</strong>
</p><p>You do not understand. All you see is white.</p><p>
  <strong>Bind your eyes, little one. You need not vision to find what cannot be seen.</strong>
</p><p>It makes sense. You tear a length from the bottom of your fraying shirt and tie it over your eyes.</p><p>
  <strong>Come. Follow the voices.</strong>
</p><p>There are so many voices, but you follow the voice that called itself Glint. You feel a gentle, hot breath over you, and an energy fills you from within.</p><p>
  <strong>Little one. Will you let me teach you?</strong>
</p><p>“Who are you?”</p><p>It is Glint, of course it is, but another voice answers. It is not the same as the previous voice that spoke with Glint.</p><p>
  <strong>We are the spirits of the Mists. We see you, who do not belong here. We see how you have fought.</strong>
</p><p>You have fought? You believe you have. But you had no weapons, and fighting was ineffective. You ran away, instead.</p><p>
  <strong>Ah, but now we will teach you. Feel this? Do you feel my strength within you?</strong>
</p><p>You feel the roaring intelligence of Glint, of her fury and her deep desire to see good done, guided by her visions.</p><p>
  <strong>Good. Reach out, and fashion a sword.</strong>
</p><p>Fashion a sword? How–?</p><p>But a hilt is in your hand, and you almost drop it in surprise, it is so heavy.</p><p>You never remembered swords to be so heavy.</p><p>
  <strong>You must learn again. Walk forward, and practice with us.</strong>
</p><p>You listen to the voices, thrust and parry where they tell you to. Spin when they say so. Manifest another sword in your non-dominant hand.</p><p>They train you, and you feel better. Stronger. Filled with purpose, now that you have company again. You were going crazy with hurt and sadness and of the loneliness.</p><p>
  <strong>You miss your mate. </strong>
</p><p>It is a sneering voice who says this, someone who identifies himself as Shiro Tagachi. <strong>Such a weakness.</strong></p><p>“He is not here,” you tell the assassin, for that was what he was, in his era. “He is too far away.”</p><p>
  <strong>We will reunite you to your family.</strong>
</p><p>This is the dwarven king, Jalis. You like him, for he is strong and brash and has a hearty laugh.</p><p>“I hope so,” you tell him. “But I need to be able to fight my way out, first.”</p><p>
  <strong>Very true. Come, back to the practice!</strong>
</p><p>But when they allow you to rest, your mind still wanders, and your heart bleeds.</p><p>You miss Aeris so much. You want to get back to Tyria as soon as you can.</p><p>
  <em>Please, Mother, let me return home. Let me come back and sit at your roots.</em>
</p><p>Your eyes are bound, and you see black. The images behind your lids are vivid, and you are glad you don’t have to stare at endless white.</p><p>
  <strong>Up. We go forward, today. </strong>
</p><p>You don’t need to see when the spirits guide you. You were wandering blind, for so long, but now you see.</p><p>Your footsteps are sure, and impressions form behind the veil. You ready your weapons.</p><p>
  <strong>We will find you armour next. Metal, for protection.</strong>
</p><p>You’ve always worn leather armour before, but you like this idea. Metal fortifies and protects. King Jalis likes metal. Glint’s once-scales were tough like metal.</p><p>If you are protected, you can go home more quickly.</p><p>You can’t wait to escape.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>vi. Aeris</em> </strong>
</p><p>The gate is so close. Its light blinds you, even after so long spent with purple lightning. You heave a breath and start to weave a portal with shaky hands.</p><p>You are so weak. So tired. You have forgotten the names of everything. You think there was something rotting near the water hole you use to fill your waterskin, but you’re not sure. You think there’s nothing more hilarious then getting turned big and small by the purple lightning.</p><p>They’re called chaos rifts.</p><p>Your hands almost fumble with the portal’s magic. Chaos? That sounds dangerous. But they’re so much <em>fun</em>.</p><p>It would be nice to escape, though. You are out of food. You are so tired. You vaguely recall the faces of some people you thought you used to love.</p><p>Sylvari? You think so, because no other race has the same diversity of skin colours. Blue and pale green. That’s all you recall. A smile, or two. Kisses and hugs and warmth.</p><p>Ah, you’d like to be warm again. The sun might be warm.</p><p>If you can get out, you can see the sun. You are so close…</p><p>The portal’s inactive purple swirls at your feet. Your eyes cross as you stare at the next pillar. You can make it, surely.</p><p>Jump, and jump. And jump and jump and jump.</p><p>What is that purple swirly thing up on that rock? And you, you are drenched, again.</p><p>How cold you are.</p><p>A portal, you think, but you’ve forgotten how to activate it. You think hard, staring at it, but as tendrils of memory stitch themselves together, the purple fades away.</p><p>You feel disappointed and sad as you trudge back to the start. You could have made it.</p><p>A smile. A memory of a smile.</p><p>Who is this sylvari you remember? Why does your heart feel warm and ache at the same time?</p><p>You don’t know.</p><p>The gate, it is so pink and bright. You jump.</p><p>Your feet slip – your soles are wet. You crash onto the floor, scrabbling for purchase.</p><p>You are wet, and on your rear end.</p><p>You feel a familiar frustration rising up, and see a red glow disappearing over the top of the rock.</p><p>He left you. He said he’d wait, but he left you.</p><p>How could he?</p><p>You fall multiple times, consumed by anger at the thought of him. How dare he leave you?</p><p>You <em>promised</em> to wait for each other. You couldn’t see his glow, for it was so dark, blacker than black.</p><p>And yet, and <em>yet.</em></p><p>He had left you.</p><p>He had not waited.</p><p>You are so angry, you miss your step. The chaos rifts have struck again, and you are massive. You slip.</p><p>You give up, and rest. You deserve a rest. You work too hard.</p><p>Your waterskin is empty.</p><p>Your hands are cut.</p><p>Your backpack is clanking, and you pull the top open angrily, to see weapons.</p><p>Huh. Weapons.</p><p>Do you know how to fight?</p><p>Your feet only know how to jump from this rock to that.</p><p>The gate is bright and pink and purple, and you can almost touch it. You do. The metal of its rim is warm under your hand.</p><p><em>Hah</em>, you think smugly at the beautiful sylvari with the red glow. He who exists only in your memory. <em>I reached the end. By myself.</em></p><p>You stumble through the gate, and you are falling.</p><p>The sun blinds you, and what is that coming up towards you–</p><p>Water, more damned water slaps you – shocks you with its force. It soaks you, but this time you can’t see the end of it. You are blinded – the <em>sun</em> – and the water is warm but also so cold, and you need air.</p><p>You swim blindly, but you are so tired. Your lungs are bursting.</p><p>The water is cool on your tongue when it rushes in.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong> <em>vii. Starmist</em> </strong>
</p><p>Everything is so bright, and so dark.</p><p>
  <strong>Time to go, little sapling.</strong>
</p><p>You don’t get to ask where.</p><p>It is hot and humid now, and the Mists have never been so. You don’t understand.</p><p>You sense figures coming towards you, and voices, actual <em>voices</em>. You turn your head up, but your hand still clutches your sword. Your shield is on your back. You are on your hands and knees.</p><p>“What do we do with him?”</p><p>“Where did he come from?”</p><p>“Sylvari! Can we trust him?”</p><p>You don’t understand.</p><p>So many figures, pressing in but holding back, and you don’t know if it is wise to raise your sword. Their distrust is so strong. Palpable.</p><p>But a little tendril wiggles over; a sweet aroma, a heady relief in the midst of so much uncertainty. “Starmist? Starmist!”</p><p>You know this voice. You turn your head towards her voice, crawling upright and sheathing your sword. Everyone takes a step back.</p><p>Your legs are shaky, but you manage to stand. The crowd parts around you, and a figure rushes through.</p><p>Small. So small. Has she always been so small, when her brother is a whole head taller?</p><p>But her hands are strong as always, and you can taste the taint of violence on her. It is stronger than when you saw her last. You can feel her heart bursting with so many emotions even as you wrap your arms around her, even as you breathe in the scent of the jungle on her.</p><p>You can feel the crowd dispersing, even as you both sink to your knees. Her tears are wet on your neck, where she has hidden her face. She hates crying, but for you, <em>because</em> it is you, she will shed a few tears.</p><p>It touches you.</p><p>“Mura, Mura.”</p><p>You stroke her hair and kiss the side of her head. Her arms clutch you more tightly.</p><p>“Star. I’ve missed you so.”</p><p>There’s something she’s not telling you. You can sense the outline of the shield on her back. She’s learnt a new skill, as you have.</p><p>“How long have I been gone?”</p><p>Murasaki shudders in your arms, and you feel her sadness. It’s so much stronger now, with your learnt abilities.</p><p>She’s always been sad, but this is an endless pool. An abyss darker than Mallyx’s taunts.</p><p>“Three years.”</p><p>You freeze. Surely, you’ve heard wrong?</p><p>“No, Star. It’s been three years. I can’t reverse that much time.”</p><p>Reverse…time?</p><p>“I’ve learnt so much in the time you were gone,” she whispers. “I’ve had to. But – even with the ability to change timelines, I can’t reverse that much time. Maybe a week, that’s the longest I’ve tried. The easiest is a few minutes to an hour.”</p><p>She’s suffered so much. You can feel it in her broken heart.</p><p>Her <em>shattered</em> heart. It was broken, before.</p><p>What horrors has she seen? How, <em>why </em>has she learnt to reverse time?</p><p>Her hand slips into yours. Small. Defeated.</p><p>“What would you change, if you could reverse time?”</p><p>Your fingers crush hers.</p><p><em>Everything</em>.</p><p>“Then you know why I learnt to manipulate time.”</p><p>She squeezes your hand. “You can sense thoughts and emotions now?” Her voice is light. Forcibly light.</p><p>You smile. This change of subject is fine. “Somewhat.”</p><p>“And your eyes? Are you like Rytlock, too?”</p><p>Rytlock? Brimstone? The charr tribune?</p><p>“He’s like you,” she tells you. “Returned from the Mists, with new abilities. Bound eyes, to help him…focus? But he won’t tell anyone about his adventures. Will you tell me?”</p><p>You smile and kiss her head again. “Of course.”</p><p>You love her so much. You would tell her anything.</p><p>“I love you too, Star.”</p><p>A crippling loss ripples through her, and you catch a flash of crushed emotion, a shattered memory.</p><p>“Where’s Aeris?”</p><p>You word it simply. She does not reply. She goes numb.</p><p>And in flashes, you feel her emotions at each stage of finding him, of trying to wake him, of trying to restore him.</p><p>His rejection of her, yet he’d listened to Midori. His hurt and anger and wariness. The black hate he’d sent crashing upon her, when she’d had nothing but love and relief in her heart for him.</p><p>It makes your heart ache too. Her emotions are so distinct.</p><p>“He’s with a warband, in Ascalon.”</p><p>More flashes of emotion. Worry that he’d get himself killed, relief when he was adopted by the charr. Hurt, for something he couldn’t name.</p><p>“When did you find him?”</p><p>“Two years ago,” she breathes.</p><p>Mother have mercy, Aeris was gone for a year?</p><p>Murasaki shakes her head. “Maybe less. But I didn’t get the message that he was found till a year after you two had disappeared.”</p><p>There’s something else in her knot of emotions that gives you pause.</p><p>“Tell me.”</p><p>She says it so slowly, so haltingly, so uncertainly. You feel like you’re adrift, when it finally pieces together in your mind.</p><p>“I think he died. It’s not Aeris who came back to us.”</p><p>And you, you can finally unravel the rest of her thought that goes with the hurt.</p><p>Aeris doesn’t believe that Murasaki is his twin.</p><p>It shocks you, because you have never known a closer pair. They are the same soul in different bodies.</p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>You sound so far away. So empty. Like you’re back in the Mists, staring at endless white.</p><p>“Chaos Caverns.”</p><p>You’d heard whispers in the Mists, of the horrors of the Thaumanova reactor and what had happened there. Your blood chills at the thought of your lover, stuck in there for so long, with all that rampant, crazy magic.</p><p>All alone.</p><p>All alone, and going crazy with it.</p><p>“I think,” Murasaki says, whispers, as if she can read your mind and not just emotions, “That he lost his mind in there. I don’t recognise him.”</p><p>Her heart crumples, and you pull her in for another hug. You know how important her twin is to her. He’s her lifeline. Half of her heart, as he is yours.</p><p>Was.</p><p>If the Aeris you knew is gone, then can he be part of your heart any longer?</p><p>“He will always be part of our hearts.”</p><p>It is the last straw. It breaks you.</p><p>You clutch at each other and sob silently, tears soaking your blindfold, her tears soaking the remnants of your shirt from three years ago.</p><p>
  <em>He will always be part of our hearts.</em>
</p><p>He is gone. The lifeline you’d clutched on to while lost in the Mists.</p><p>You can feel the truth of it in your soul. Murasaki does not lie, not about these things.</p><p>
  <em>Mother, Mother, why does this happen to us?</em>
</p><p>“The Pale Mother is unconscious,” Murasaki says haltingly, voice cracked. “Mordremoth – the Jungle Elder Dragon, attacked her.”</p><p>It’s all it takes you make you break again.</p><p>
  <em>All that is love is lost, and loss is ashes on the wind; bitter to taste, chilling even when it has left.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, chronologically in my timeline, the boys disappear sometime in LS1, before Scarlet destroys Lion's Arch. Aeris reappears from the Chaos Caverns sometime after Scarlet is killed, so he's gone for at least 6 months. Starmist doesn't come back from the Mists until shortly after Mordremoth is killed. Don't ask about the mechanics of food and water, I don't know xd</p></blockquote></div></div>
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